Joe Strummer

Can't believe it's been nine years to the day since Joe Strummer died. I was lucky to see him live once - absolutely brilliant. I bought Combat Rock when I was 13 and I think I played it every day for a year.

Benton! Benton! BENTON!

This is definitely today's flavour of the month, but will we still love Benton tomorrow?

Art Brut! Top Of The Pops! But In German!

Sometimes this country isn't all it's cracked up to be.



Last night, while BBC and ITV were showing Strictly Come Dancing and X Factor, ZDF in Germany were broadcasting a live performance of Art Brut, The Blood Arm and dEUS in a warehouse in Berlin.

I watched neither - I dug out my Hot Fuzz DVD instead - but was able to watch it in its entirety this morning. Not knowing how long it was going to be on the ZDF website for, I also managed to, er, find a copy, which you can download below:

Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Part 5 |
Part 6

It's almost a gigabyte and it's in ASF which plays perfectly well on Windows Media Player for me, hope it does for you too if you go to the trouble of downloading.

PS Google Translate seems to think that Top Of The Pops in German is Top Of The Pops, which is a little disappointing. I might have gone for Top Der Pops or something.

PPS And they played St Pauli. Natürlich.

A harrowing thought

When you were born, you were the:

3,562,698,075th person alive on Earth

77,619,580,996th person to have lived since history began

How did we calculate that?

Both numbers have been calculated using UN Population Division figures. The first is an estimate of how many people were alive on your date of birth. It is one possible value based on global population figures and estimates of growth rates over time. Data before 1950 is less accurate than figures after that date. The second number includes calculations based on the methodology of scholar Carl Haub, who estimated how many people had been alive since 50,000 B.C. His calculation has been amended by the UN to include additional points in time.

What's next? The global population will continue to increase during your lifetime and beyond, reaching 10 billion by 2083. However, the rate of growth is expected to slow. Little of the current growth is happening in developed countries like yours.

Longer lives: Working-age people like you will be supporting increasing numbers of older people during the next decades. By 2050, there will be just 2.2 people of working age supporting every person aged 65 or older in the developed world. In Europe, this will drop to just two.

Battle for resources: It is estimated that your group of the richest countries consumes double the resources used by the rest of the world. The UN estimates that if current population and consumption trends continue, by the 2030s we will need the equivalent of two Earths to support us.

Did you know? The average family size globally has declined by half since 1950 - from five children in to the current 2.5.

352 people - the amount the population has grown while you've been on this site

Victor Lewis-Smith on QVC

Had no idea he was still going.

Where do people get these stamps from?

Just received this letter. The one on the left is a 26p first class stamp from 1998; the one on the right is a 9p first class stamp from 1978. It just amazes me to think that some people rummage through a drawer and find stamps that have been sitting there 33 years.

Unless they bought it in the Isle of Wight I suppose. The whole place is still in 1978.

Fight Like Apes and (2 of) the Frank and Walters - Walter's Trip

Still doing some random Youtubery while I contemplate getting this blog back on track.

I was pretty surprised to see this collaboration - after all no one covers the wonderful Frank and Walters, do they? Recorded by some guy (thanks, guy) on Thursday last week at the Bowery in Cork.

The Welsh Music Prize

I know I haven't blogged much lately because of WORK and stuff but I found this much more interesting than the Mercury Music Prize, mainly because Adele isn't in the shortlist I guess! The excellent JOY FORMIDABLE and Y NIWL are on it, as well as the very very good Gruff Rhys and the Manics I suppose - not sure if that band hanging around makes me feel old or young again.

This is one reason why the Joy Formidable are excellent:



and one why Y Niwl, etc ...



To quote the press release I received:

We’re excited to announce the shortlist for the first ever Welsh Music Prize. The shortlist, in alphabetical order, is as follows:

Al Lewis - In The Wake [Al Lewis Music]
Colorama - Box [See Monkey Do Monkey Records]
Funeral For A Friend - Welcome Home Armageddon [Distiller Records]
Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo [Turnstile Music]
Lleuwen - Tan [Gwymon]
Manic Street Preachers - Postcards from a Young Man [Columbia]
Stagga - The Warm Air Room [Rag and Bone]
Sweet Baboo - I’m a Dancer/Songs About Sleepin’ [Shape Records]
The Blackout - Hope [Cooking Vinyl]
The Gentle Good - Tethered for the Storm [Gwymon]
The Joy Formidable - Big Roar [Atlantic]
Y Niwl - Y Niwl [Aderyn Papur]

As daunting as the task of choosing a shortlist was, a panel of 10 expert judges will now face the unenviable task of choosing just one winner from that list to be announced on Friday 21 October 2011 during SWN Festival 2011 in Cardiff.

Huw Stephens, Radio 1 presenter and co-organiser of Welsh Music Prize said: “We are very pleased to launch the Welsh Music Prize with twelve strong albums from Welsh artists. The shortlist is but a reflection on the quality music made in Wales and released internationally. We hope the Prize brings these collections of work to a new audience, and we are looking forward to announcing an overall winner on October 21st.”

http://welshmusicprize.com
http://swnfest.com

Or if you like:

Ni yn falch iawn i gyhoeddi y rhestre fer ar gyfer Gwbor Gerddoriaeth Gymreig, y tro cyntaf i'r gwobrau ddigwydd. Dyma'r rhestr fer, yn nhrefn y wyddor:

Al Lewis - In The Wake [Al Lewis Music]
Colorama - Box [See Monkey Do Monkey Records]
Funeral For A Friend - Welcome Home Armageddon [Distiller Records]
Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo [Turnstile Music]
Lleuwen - Tan [Gwymon]
Manic Street Preachers - Postcards from a Young Man [Columbia]
Stagga - The Warm Air Room [Rag and Bone]
Sweet Baboo - I’m a Dancer/Songs About Sleepin’ [Shape Records]
The Blackout - Hope [Cooking Vinyl]
The Gentle Good - Tethered for the Storm [Gwymon]
The Joy Formidable - Big Roar [Atlantic]
Y Niwl - Y Niwl [Aderyn Papur]

Roedd cyraedd y rhestr yma yn anodd gan fod gymaint o albyms gwerth chweil wedi dod o Gymru yn y 12 mis diwethaf, ond nawr bydd 10 beirniad yn gorfod dewis un ennillydd o;r rhestr yma, i'w gyhoeddi ar ddydd gwener Hydref 21 2011 yn ystod Gwyl Swn 2011 yng Nghaerdydd.

Dweudodd Huw Stephens: Rydym yn falch iawn o lawnsio Gwobr Gerddoriaeth Gymreig gyda deuddeg albym cryf ar y rhestr fer. Mae'r rhestr yn adlewyrchiad o'r gerddoriaeth o safon uchel sydd yn cael eu greu yng Nghymru ac yn cael eu glywed o amgylch y byd. Rydym yn gobeithio bydd y Wobr yn dod a'r gerddoriaeth i gynulleidfa newydd, ac rydym yn edrych mlaen i ewni enillydd ar Hydref 21.

http://welshmusicprize.com
http://swnfest.com

They've still got it.

Had to post this too. I realise that most people won't find it the slightest bit funny - it takes years of building up (not to mention months of flicking round Sky and seeing Michael McIntyre on all the bloody time) to fully appreciate this.

Probably unlikely, but you never know

Dreamt last night I interviewed Kate Bush and found out she was a big fan of early 2000AD, progs 1-400. Probably not a precognitive dream.

Here's a video that someone posted on my wall soon after I woke up. Hard to cover Kate Bush in the same kind of style but I have big love for the Faroe Island and a cover from a Faroese singer just makes sense.



Easier to cover if you completely change the style. Not everything works but I've loved this song since it came out in 1996.

He learned how to do that at Upton Park, you know

Two weeks without an update! I feel I owe you, my imaginary readers, an apology.

In the meantime here's a Yossi Benayoun wondergoal to enjoy. Bloody showoff.

Back home now ...

... and getting ready for Christmas.

Isle Of Lewis

Here's the unfeasibly beautiful place I am staying tonight. Unfortunately it's not actually called (or pronounced) Barrabas, the English is Barvas.





This is the view from my B&B:



This is mostly a monolingual place, and the language isn't English. By coincidence I chose the town where the highest percentage of people in the UK speak a non-English language - 74.7% speak Gaelic. Whereas in the Highlands Gaelic is on roadsigns as the second language - almost a touristy gimmick - there are roadsigns here which aren't actually in English at all.

Gearraidh na h-Aibhne is Garynahine in English, Liurbost is Leurbost (OK, that one's close), Steornabhagh is Stornoway, Tairbeart is Tarbert. Rathad Aon-fhillte means Single Track Road.



While in Stornoway I had a chance to visit the Lewis chessmen exhibition. There was more than three, but I couldn't go round and photograph every case! I don't think the last exhibit is actually a Norse relic.









I'm back in Stornoway again, sitting in the Arts Centre as I think it's the only place in town with wifi. It's 9.15pm and the sun is still out ...



The sort of thing you see everywhere in the world in town centres except England. The inscription on the edge reads: "A'leth-aithneachadh gach duine air a chuideachd, aithne gun chuimhne, is cuimhne gun aithne". It's from "Air an Aiseig gu Leodhas" by Derick Thomson and it translates as "Half-recognising each by his kin, a knowing-without-remembering, and a remembering-without-knowing". Thank you, random bloke on Flickr!

Callanish (or Calanais, if you're a local)

Finally got to Lewis then. Had to make ELEVEN calls before I found a place to stay that had vacancies - why didn't I book ahead? Glad I didn't because I found a very nice place in a quiet village on the west side of the island, with an off-licence not too far away.

Anyway, back to the ancient relics. How many photos of these things can I take?
Let's find out ...
















Oh and check out the SHADOWS and the BLUE SKIES, we have SUN here! I am listening to Boring Wimbledon on the car radio (yes, they get DAB out here, amazingly) and I know it's raining down there!

Ullapool

Maybe the fourth or fifth time I have visited but the first time I have stayed here. Still seems exactly the same as when I first came here.







My favourite ex-Esso station on the edge of any town. All that's missing is a blue Capri.





This is the hotel I stayed in, one block back from the shore.





It had its own bookshop - if you look carefully through the doorway you can see the bar. And good old Maisie mouse, she gets everywhere!

The Long Hard Drive From Aberdeen To Ullapool

I think this took me about NINE hours in total. It wasn't so bad as I got to Aberdeen at 7am, and made it to Duncansby Head by about 1. Had an hour or so in the morning but after that it was just overcast with the occasional bit of blue sky and sun.

Of course there wasn't much to photograph for the first few hours except Scottish football grounds:

Elgin City



Forres Mechanics





I think this was my favourite one because I was able to drive up to the pitch itself. Plus you can visit the Red Beastie after the game.





Inverness Caledonian Thistle, taken safely from the A9.



Brora Rangers





Wick Academy



Can't wait for the new season to start and the Highland League results to come up on the BBC, so I can shout "I've been there!" at the TV.

Anyway enough of the football for today. This was the first bilingual road sign I saw. I didn't see another one until I was out of the north east and much closer to Ullapool.



After a long drive up the A9, on something that at least resembled a proper road, I got to Duncansby Head, the most north-easternly corner of the British mainland.







This was the first of three stops close together to visit the local "first and last" landmarks. The second was John O'Groats. I don't know why it gets such a bad press, it's not THAT bad, especially compared to Land's End which is much tackier. It was a shame to see the John O'Groats Hotel boarded up. Many years ago I had an enjoyable evening of drinking beer and playing pool there before sitting down on the waterfront behind it to watch the sun go down over the Orkneys at about 11pm.







Finally, Dunnet Head, the most northernly point on the British mainland. As the sign says.





Had a brief stop at Bettyhill to see the Farr Stone, an 8th century Pictish thing.







After that it was about 80 miles to Ullapool, mostly on single track roads. There was pretty much only one town on the way, Lairg. That was a tough afternoon, although there wasn't much traffic at all - I might have seen another car every 3 or 4 miles.